Rick Perlstein Quotes

Polls could be self-fulfilling prophecies, shaping reality as much as they described it.

The head of Goldwater's California operation "what was so uncomfortable around people that he worked up a routine to deal with employees with whom he was forced to share an elevator: "Taken your vacation yet?" he would ask when they entered; answer took just long enough to deliver him to his fourth-floor office.

One does not hold a conversation with him. One holds a symposium. – Elizabeth Drew

The task of defending capitalism was still important to leave to the capitalists.

He fetishized limits.

Fifties advertising was a dogmatic art, to the point of pretending to be a science.

Television was suppressing their freedom not to know.

Chits knew no ideology.